Doctor Who Unbound - The Dead Stay Dead
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: The Mummy Imhotep is about to be awoken by a careless archaeologist who is ignorant of the alien technology belonging to the long-gone Osirians until stopped by someone who knows the dead stay dead. Set in 1932's The Mummy film starring Boris Karloff. (Full Fathom Five Universe)


Disclaimer - I own neither the Mummy nor Doctor Who, I just own this one-shot.

The Mummy in this one-shot is the version from 1932, played by Boris Karloff. I chose this particular version of the Mummy because it had what I wanted in order for the one-shot to work. So apologies to fans of the 1990s Mummy film with Brendan Fraiser and Rachel Weisz - I like that movie too, but I wanted to keep it simple. At least, for the time being. I might write a second one...

The Doctor in this one-shot is from the parallel universe shown in Big Finish's audio drama "Full Fathom Five," played by David Collings. In this drama, the Doctor travels through time and space with the belief the ends justify the means. The Doctor in this audio was willing to kill anyone who was unrepentant or who refused to learn from evil acts.

Enjoy!

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The Dead Stay Dead.

As he stood in the shadows looking into the small, pokey room crammed full of junk with the opened simple looking Ancient Egyptian sarcophagus leaning against the wall with the bandaged more or less preserved form of the mummy inside with the top right next to it while a man with tightly curled fair hair hunched over a piece of paper while he routinely checked an unrolled scroll so he could translate from it now Sir Joseph Whemple and Dr Muller were gone leaving the last archaeologist to translate the scroll by himself, the Doctor wondered about the numerous races who'd had some hand in shaping the history of the human race.

There were quite a few to choose from; ironically, if you saw like he had how they would later try to wipe humanity out simply because they had taken over the planet during their absence while they'd been locked in suspended animation, the Silurians had tinkered here and there with the human genome though it hadn't been to make the humans' primitive ancestors more intelligent out of some kind of well-meaning experiment with a group of scientists hacking into the DNA to see if they could make improvements but simply to make the humans taste better, though in the Doctor's mind the most significant had been the Jagaroth and the Daemons; Scaroth may not have wanted to admit it, but his various splintered selves had pushed human development, though what he had been planning to do with the primitive time machine would not have worked.

The Doctor would always take the Daemons and the Osirian interference over what the Fendahl had done to enhance the human capacity for cruelty, though sometimes the Time Lord wondered whenever he saw just what humans were capable of just how much of that cruelty was genetic and how much had been implanted into humanity, but as he took in the Egyptian paraphernalia in the room while he carefully watched Ralph Norton who'd disregarded Muller's warnings about the scroll was continuing the translation of the scroll, he couldn't help but think about the Osirians.

As a species, on the whole, they had helped to shape dozens of cultures throughout the galaxies before Sutekh had risen to power to wage his war across the universe simply because few had given him the cuddles he'd wanted when he'd been younger since it had all gone to Horus, but the Doctor had always respected their power, though the respect he'd had for them had faltered slightly after that meeting with Sutekh during his fourth incarnation.

It was impossible for the Doctor to not think about that moment where he'd been held hopeless against the power of an Osirian who'd had centuries long before he'd left his own world to stew, only to end up on a world light years away metaphorically chained up inside a prison and had done _nothing _but stew even further.

Regardless of the bad memories he'd had during the experience, the meeting with Sutekh had reminded the Doctor of just how much Osirian technology littered the Earth, and regardless of the manner of just how the highly advanced and powerful aliens had left the Earth behind and left the Egyptians to fend for themselves when they'd realised they needed to step aside and let the Ancient Egyptians grow into their own destiny, it had been reckless for them to leave so much behind although it would take centuries for humanity to travel to other worlds that had been touched by Sutekh's people and realise the truth to discover the secrets of Osirian technology to put them to good use.

While the Doctor could appreciate all that, why in the name of the Eye of Harmony did the Osirians leave behind rings that had the power to bring back the long dead even if it wasn't the original intention?

The Doctor knew that the original intention behind the gifting of those rings was to see if the humans were capable, not to mention worthy, of developing powers similar to those of the Osirians.

They weren't designed to be just devices to resurrect the dead which was virtually impossible to do unless there was still some spark of life, the mind, though something powerful and unique could hold said spark within itself for a long period of time as though it were a power system with the energy locked in a perpetual stasis loop, and even an Osirian at the height of their considerable power could not reverse the dead.

It didn't work that way - the rings were designed to contain the mind of the wearer, and if they died it would be held in suspension. They didn't bring the dead back to life. The body would be reanimated when someone spoke a key code phrase, and the body would be reanimated. Life was easy when you looked at it; you could use nano genes to bring a dying person back to life, repairing their injuries along the way. The rings used the same tricks, but they weren't given to just anybody. No, the rings had been given to the Osirians most dedicated servants as gifts that could give them powers that were similar to that of an Osirian, though on a lower level except the Doctor knew if one of those dedicated servants or a power-mad idiot had tried to use one of those rings on an Osirian, it wouldn't do anything to the powerful alien except annoy them.

The Osirians had been overall disappointed with the experiment although they had quickly moved on when they saw that some, not all humans, had the power to use the power of the mind, but he thought they were rather foolish for leaving the technology behind even if later humans would never really know for centuries what the rings were and what they could do, but he liked to guess later generations would have evolved to the level the Osirians had wanted to find had been the main motive.

As the Doctor studied the ring that he could see on the mummy, who was known as Imhotep, he needed no clues about how the mummified former High Priest had gotten hold of it.

The Osirians may have slowly withdrawn from their dominion in Egypt, but their word was still law - they wanted those rings passed down to the various high ranking people from pharoahs to high priests. While they may look like decorative jewellery, the Doctor knew they were immensely powerful and dangerous in the wrong hands.

The Doctor stiffened when he realised Norton had finished the translation and had just begun to speak the spell which was the code phrase for the resurrection protocol built into the ring which would reanimate Imhotep's corpse, and he quickly pulled out the pistol that came from this era which he had picked up when he had prepared for this particular case. He fired the two bullets into Norton's chest and skull from behind, and Norton's body jerked upwards in shock but the bullets had done their job.

Fully stepping into the room while he still had time - the gun didn't have a silencer, and anyone could have heard the double shots and he had no desire to be here when they arrived - the Doctor worked quickly. He grabbed the finished translation of the scroll and shoved it into his pocket while he grabbed the scroll as well so no-one who found another ring being worn by a mummy could come back even though it was highly unlikely someone would go to all the trouble of trying to bring them back to life, but he couldn't leave anything to chance. He would deal with the scroll and the translation inside the TARDIS when he left to make sure all the loose ends were properly tied up.

Once he had grabbed the scroll, he upturned the table, smashing the equipment which was there to the ground, and he also went over to the shelves near the desk before he shoved it to the ground, and the air inside the small enclosed room echoed with the sounds of broken Ancient Egyptian vases while he grabbed a few pieces.

With any luck, the archaeologists would think an opportunistic thief had come in, killed Norton, and made off with several things while smashing the rest for some reason they couldn't grasp, either way, he didn't care because his goals had been fulfilled. Once he was finished setting the scene, the Doctor quickly walked over to the sarcophagus and he examined the mummy inside. As he stepped over to the sarcophagus, the Doctor felt a slight chill go down his spine as the timelines shifted, but he decided to pay it no heed until he reached the TARDIS and scanned them from there. Right now he had something important to do.

After a few minutes of careful study he saw there was no life to the mummy's body - the Doctor knew that in the unaltered timeline which he had studied before he had come here to end the threat of Imhotep, the eyes would have been the first sign of life since the ring would have regenerated the long decayed eyeballs and when they were opened the mummy would be awake - and he pulled back in satisfaction.

Although Ralph Norton had managed to say a few words of the spell, the ring's properties had not started, never mind finished the process of regenerating Imhotep's body while replacing the High Priest's mind back.

But Imhotep's mind was still active. It had been for a few millennia now; the Egyptians had known as long as the High Priest had worn the ring although they knew nothing about the mechanic's of their 'god's' technology, his mind would essentially exist though separate from the body in a form of living death, as punishment for what he had done.

The Doctor reached out and grabbed the ring and ripped it off of the mummy's finger and shoved it into the pocket of his jacket before he walked out of the room and returned to his TARDIS.


End file.
